And We Run: A Game of Hide and Seek
by Shane C
Summary: The events of the Dark Angel TV series through another lens - the eyes of another '09 escapee, X5-205, better known as Zane. All content will be as close to canon as I can possibly make it. Reviews greatly appreciated...historically, my upload speed relies on feedback ;) Special thanks to my beta, lexieconextreme...check out her work, it's excellent!
1. Prologue

**Los Angeles**

 **2020**

My name is Zane. My designation is X5-205. I'm a fugitive, but I'm not running from justice; as a matter of fact, it's the opposite. I'm a fugitive from injustice. I'm not the criminal – I'm running from the criminals. Hard to believe, maybe. True, definitely.

The problem with being a fugitive, even one as well-trained as I am, is that after a while, you stop _feeling_ like a fugitive. It's just human nature to stop looking over your shoulder when you feel safe. And I'm mostly human.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

The people chasing me are dedicated like you wouldn't believe. So far, they've always caught up to me. They get better at their jobs even as I get better at mine. It took them only four months to catch up to me in Tacoma, back in 2010. I narrowly escaped that one with my life. I learned from it, though; took my lessons away with me just like I took the bullet wound they gave me. I lasted nine months in Portland. My mistake that time was not running far enough before going to ground. When they found me there, I got away clean, and I didn't stop until I hit New Mexico. I made it four years there, long enough to build a bit of a life for myself. My mistake there was forgetting a core part of my training – getting lost was easier and more effective if you did it in a crowd. I felt safe in my sleepy little town, where I knew everybody's name. The problem with that was that, after a while, they all knew mine. To this day, I'm still not sure how they found me.

Doesn't matter. Point is, they found me. I got away that time because of sheer luck. That's a story for another time. After that, I remembered my training. I used it to my advantage. I picked the biggest population I could find and went to ground in Los Angeles. I was a model citizen. No more break-ins. No more doing things the easy way. I got a simple job as an auto mechanic and kept my head down. Zack found me, but that didn't worry me. Zack was better at his job than Manticore. In a way, he was more Manticore than Manticore. Zack _never_ forgot what they taught us. He used it against them at every turn. He took me into the fold of his mission, which was to keep all of us escapees isolated and safe.

So after five years in the same place, in the same job, that's exactly how I felt – safe. I knew Manticore hadn't given up. They'd never give up. They couldn't. But I hadn't had a blip on my radar in five years. I had Zack, the perfect soldier, watching my back. I fell into a daily routine, experienced a little happiness, a little normalcy. I even got a dog. No girlfriend, no close friends...those things weren't an option for a guy like me. But my dog Bruiser was loyal. He'd never rat me out, because they couldn't threaten Bruiser. They couldn't intimidate him. They couldn't tempt him with money. All he cared about was his daily rations and a little attention from me.

I worked ten hours a day, just like everybody else. I had co-workers I liked and disliked, just like a normal person. I bought a car and worked on it in my spare time, and even that felt normal.

One night, in the spring of 2020, the world I'd built for myself came crashing down around my ears. Again.

I was on shift with Daryl. Daryl was a pain in the ass. He was the owner's son, so he felt entitled to boss me around. Never mind the fact that he was an ignorant, loud-mouthed buffoon with the mechanical skills of a Rhesus monkey.

And he _always_ got to pick what we listened to on the TV.

We were working on an old wreck of a pre-Pulse Ford. Well, _I_ was. Daryl was underneath on the crawler, pretending to check the bolts that I'd already replaced and occasionally asking me to stop what I was doing to hand him something, just to remind me who was in charge. I was reattaching the transmission I'd rebuilt to the engine block when the television program suddenly transformed into a message.

A message for me.

" _ **This is a message for those known as X5. You have been compromised. You are in danger. You know what to do. I repeat, your locations have been compromised. You know what to do. This message will repeat every hour, on the hour, until each of you has checked in."**_

That message was like a time machine. Instantly, I was nine years old again, barefooted and in a hospital johnny, sprinting through the snow with bullets flitting around me as I made a mad dash for freedom. All conscious thought had left my head. My emotions had disappeared, and what replaced them was a cold curtain of training and instinct. Only three words were in my brain, and they repeated over and over, like a stuttering neon sign.

 _Escape and evade._


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

 _ **Manticore, Gillette WY Facility**_

 _ **2008**_

" _Always have your mission planned out," Lydecker said. He paced in front of the cadre of X5s under his command as they sat at attention in the classroom. "Before you begin, have every aspect planned. Have every contingency identified and planned for. Sloppy mission planning gets more soldiers killed than sloppy execution. X5-471."_

 _Krit was on his feet and standing at attention in less than a second. "Sir!"_

" _You are on a solo op to eliminate an enemy commander. Your orders are to engage and eliminate within forty-eight hours, then return to base for debriefing. Due to a higher volume of guards than anticipated, you ascertain that you will be unable to eliminate the target within the specified time frame and still manage to escape. What do you do?"_

 _Krit's expression didn't change, but the other X5s noticed the slight tensing of his shoulders. "Sir, I would carry out the mission. The mission comes first, sir!"_

 _Lydecker gave him a disappointed look and nodded to the Tactical Officer. The TO placed Krit in cuffs and led him away. "X5-471 just gave me a stupid answer. Why was his answer stupid, 493?"_

 _Ben leaped out of his desk and bellowed, "Because he failed to recognize that eliminating the target was only half of the mission, sir! Returning to base to debrief was the second half of the mission, sir! That cannot be accomplished if he is incapacitated or KIA, sir!"_

 _Lydecker nodded. "Good, 493. How would you handle the scenario?"_

" _Reestablish contact with command and ask for updated instructions, sir!"_

 _Lydecker's disappointed look returned. "Congratulations, 493, you'll be joining 471 in solitary confinement. 599, please save you unit further disgrace and give me what I'm looking for."_

" _Sir, I would maintain comm silence, as per page 122 of the Solo Operations Instruction Manual, sir! I would alter the mission parameters myself and find a way to accomplish both sets of objectives! The time frame in which a mission is to be accomplished is always secondary to the mission itself, sir! Page 131 of the Solo Operations Instruction Manual, sir!" Zack said, stone-faced._

" _Outstanding, 599. Explaining why your mission took longer than expected in debriefing is an acceptable outcome, as long as your mission was accomplished." His gaze drifted over the X5s in the front row, the ranking officers of the unit. "Staying alive is paramount. You represent billions of dollars in government R &D. You do not have the right to die. God help you if you manage to get yourself captured." The X5s did not know what God meant, but they caught the drift of the message Lydecker was trying to impart. "You will die only when you are given permission to die by a commanding officer, and not a moment before. Escaping to safety is always going to be a primary objective of any mission."_

'The irony is that the training they gave us is the very thing that's keeping us out of their reach,' I thought as I punched through the wall of my studio loft and pulled my go-bag out from behind the plaster patch. My go-bag contained the bare essentials – one change of clothes, dehydrated food and water to last a week, my anti-seizure meds, a .45 caliber pistol, and three spare clips. Bruiser sensed my tension and barked questioningly at me, and I spared him a quick ear-scratch on my way out. I was in my apartment for a bare twenty-five seconds before I was out the window and on the move again. I hated to leave Bruiser for even a while, but I had a contingency plan for him, too.

My senses were operating at full capacity. As I tucked the .45 into my jeans at the small of my back, my ears searched the cacophony of sounds in the city for the sound of military Hummers or choppers. My eyes scanned everything, from choke points where I'd be trapped to civilians who may be soldiers in disguise. I kept an eye out for Sector Police, knowing that Manticore had conscripted them on fugitive recovery operations in the past. I followed my pre-planned escape route without thinking about it, which left me free to keep my attention on potential danger.

I slipped through alleys, up and down fire escapes to rooftops and back down to street level again. I reached the parking garage where I stored my vehicle, a nondescript Mazda. I'd heavily modified the performance of the car, but left the exterior rusty and dented. The primer patches and generally beat-up look of the car made it ideal for blending in with the rest of the city traffic. I'd even drilled holes in the performance exhaust of the car to give it a strident, blatting sound instead of a steady purr. In short, it was a fast, nimble machine with perfect camouflage. I was extremely proud of it.

I fired up the engine and resisted the urge to stand on the accelerator. Getting out of the hot zone as fast as possible was extremely important, but drawing attention to myself was unacceptable. I pulled out of the garage at a sedate twenty MPH and joined the line of cars waiting to leave Sector One, which was the northernmost sector of L.A. Like I said, my escape from the city had been planned from the day I got there. One checkpoint was all that stood between me and open, lightly-patrolled highway. A quarter of a mile to freedom.

My adrenaline was pumping, and was it possible that I was a little excited? Was it possible that I actually didn't mind this turn of events?

Of course it was. This kind of action was hardwired into my genetic code; I was built for it. I was trained for it. And one thing I know for sure is that the only thing talent wants is to be used. And it was undeniable – in this sort of situation, I was talented. Talented as hell.

But as the line inched toward the waiting Sector cops and the checkpoint, I realized that my talents might go to waste this time. I felt two things simultaneously – relief and an absurd disappointment. I started thinking about things I'd been too busy to think about before. Who was it that sent the warning? The voice that had broadcast the message had been calm, but there'd also been a sense of urgency in it. That urgency had been what caught my attention and made me a believer. But what if it had just been a trick? What if Manticore had figured out a way to flush us out? We couldn't ignore the warning – when someone told us we'd been compromised, we didn't have the luxury of sitting around and debating whether it was true or not. Maybe Manticore had counted on that. After all, it was a lot easier to find a running man than a hiding man. People on the run were people in a hurry, and people in a hurry were a lot more likely to make mistakes.

If our locations had really been compromised, shouldn't the noose be closing? Shouldn't I at least have gotten a whiff of military movement? I used my enhanced vision to scope the cops at the checkpoint, and they were definitely bored. Nothing had their back hair up.

That led to another question – if the sender of the warning had been on the level, _how_ had we been compromised? The only person who had our locations was Zack, and Zack would _never_ give us up. Zack would die before he let himself get captured. Wouldn't he?

'Questions for another time,' I told myself forcefully. 'Keep your head in the game, soldier.'

Two cars in front of me. The cops were hassling the guy in the pickup truck, forcing him out and searching the cab. It was maddening – I was twenty-five feet from freedom, and I was at the mercy of some dumbass cops with nothing better to do than jam people up.

That was when I heard two things that dumped even more adrenaline into my bloodstream.

The first was a sound I'd been listening for ever since bolting from the garage – the sound of a distant helo, a Special Ops Blackhawk. I'd grown up hearing them, and I'd know the sound anywhere. It was still off in the distance, and behind me. If I could just get through the checkpoint, they'd be sucking my dust.

The second sound was even worse. The portable radios the Sector cops wore all squawked simultaneously. "Sectors One through Twelve, be advised – we have a Priority One fugitive in the city. All checkpoints lock down immediately. Repeat, all checkpoints are to lock down immediately. Anyone who tries to break containment is to be shot on sight."

'Shit. Not good,' I thought furiously.

It looked like I was going to get that action after all.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 _ **Manticore, Gillette WY Facility**_

 _ **2008**_

 _The X5s filed into the classroom and took their seats silently. They were returning from Op Training at the site on base they knew only as City One. It was a collection of small buildings and dwellings which were a far cry from the barracks they called home. No one lived there, it was only for training purposes. On Op days, the buildings and dwellings were filled with soldiers who were each assigned a role. The X5s had heard the soldiers refer to City One as "Pleasantville," but the X5s did not understand the unofficial designation._

 _Lydecker strolled in. Without a word, he started the video debriefing of the Op that had just been completed. The hundreds of cameras placed throughout City One showed Tinga as she went about her first solo operation – infiltrating the city without being seen, slipping through the streets unnoticed by the soldiers, entering the administrative building in its center. She effortlessly broke into the safe in the office on the third floor and took the documents inside, the ones she'd been assigned to retrieve. As she tucked them into her BDU blouse, an alarm began to sound. None of the X5s could see what, if anything, Tinga had done to set it off._

 _Bars slammed down over the windows, blocking an immediate escape. Quick as lightning, Tinga made her way down the stairwell. She "killed" the few guards who blocked her way with lipstick rounds and made it to the street. Once there, she came under heavy fire. She made it over the wire and out, but not before taking hits in her right calf and left bicep. As each lipstick round smacked into her in the video, Tinga flushed with shame._

 _Lydecker caught her blush and paused the video. "No need for that, soldier," he said with uncharacteristic gentleness. "You completed your objective. You only made one mistake. When the alarm sounded, you thought like one of_ them - _" he pointed to one of the soldiers frozen on the video screen, "Instead of one of_ you - _" he gestured to the assembled X5s._

 _He turned the monitor off, signaling that it was time for the X5s to give him their undivided attention. "When things go wrong, normal people act in a predictable manner. They look to get_ out – _out through a window, out through a door." The X5s remembered the bars hammering shut over the windows. "When they can't, they try to get to the ground and figure it out from there." He laughed humorlessly. "Rats. Or cockroaches. That's all people are, when you get down to it. Security predicts these predictable actions and accounts for them. So your job is to react differently. You have to act in a way that standard security can't – or won't – predict. There's always a way out. Your job is to see what normal soldiers can't, and then act decisively once you've seen it."_

That quote from Lydecker echoed through my head as the checkpoint in front of me was locked down. The cops rolled the reinforced gate closed and triple locked it. One cop even hopped into the idling truck and parked it sideways in front of the gate, forming an additional barrier. Four cops from the guardhouse beside the gate sprinted out to cover the weak points in the fence, leaving only two inside to coordinate the lockdown.

The guardhouse. The one place there was _always_ a sector cop. The _one_ place most people would avoid like the plague. But to me, because of Lydecker's training, I knew that it was really the weak point. Flimsy wood and plaster as opposed to reinforced steel fencing. The cops inside gave it the illusion of strength, and their whole security protocol was built on that fallacy.

I edged the nose of my car around and pointed it directly at the guardhouse. The cop standing in front of it gave me a little nod and waved his arm; he thought I had seen the lockdown and was turning around. I couldn't help but smile a little. Lydecker was a cruel man, but he'd been right about some things. _'Most people are sheep.'_

I revved the engine, dropped it straight into second gear, and let off the clutch. My tires screamed against the pavement before catching and launching me forward. I calculated the distance and saw that the cops inside would have just enough time to get out. They yelled and started to point their rifles, then saw my velocity and decided they'd like to live a little longer. They dove out of the shack like it was on fire.

Just in time, too. My car hit it like a demon bulldozer hell-bent on total destruction. Boards flipped over my hood, starring my windshield with cracks. There was a thump from underneath the car, another deafening crash as I hit the rear wall, and then I was through!

I started weaving the car back and forth like a drunk driver before they even started shooting, gaining speed all the time. I heard a few rounds punch through the trunk, but the vast majority just clicked harmlessly off of the road on either side of me. I grimaced at their total lack of accuracy. In a matter of seconds, I was out of range and around the corner, merging onto the highway.

When I got past fifty MPH, I felt the car start to shimmy and shake. Not good. I had expected to take damage; you don't drive a car through a building without consequences. Every idiot light on my dash was lit up red. I could smell gasoline, which meant either the fuel line had torn loose, or the tank itself had been punctured. Either way, I wasn't going to get very far. I hammered my fist against the steering wheel as I realized I was going to have to ditch my ride. As soldiers, we weren't supposed to form sentimental attachments to anything...but dammit, how could you lovingly labor on a machine for two years, putting your time, money, sweat, and sometimes blood into it, and _not_ become attached?

I got two miles before the engine started to hiccup and lurch, a sure sign a breakdown was imminent. I quickly pulled into a small parking lot belonging to, ironically enough, an auto repair shop. "End of the line, old friend," I muttered, patting the dash. I grabbed my bag from the seat beside me and got out.

A fussy-looking fat man came running out of the tiny shop. "Hey man, I'm closed! Come back tomorrow..." He saw the shape my car was in, and his nostrils flared as he smelled the fuel. "Or better yet, don't! That's leaking unleaded all over my lot, you asshole! Get it out of here, get -"

I had been walking toward him, smiling and making calm-down gestures, which had been completely ignored. Now I clipped him with a right hook, pulling the punch at the last second. I had to put him to sleep, but that didn't mean I needed to crack the guy's jaw for him. He went down like a sack of bricks, and I sprinted the rest of the way to the shop.

Just like I knew there would be, there was a pegboard behind the desk with keys hanging from it. I grabbed the one with the Pontiac tag hanging from it – the car I'd spotted that looked in the best shape. I ran to the hideous purple paint job in the lot, stopping to tuck about $500 in the unconscious man's pocket. It probably wouldn't cover the car I was about to steal, but it was the best I could do with my limited supply of running money. I got in, fired it up, and got back on the road. I was still a few steps ahead of the sirens and choppers in my wake, but they were closing in fast.


End file.
